3 Nephi 17:24 Textual Variants

Here the 1858 Wright edition added the word round before the first about. The 1874 and 1892 RLDS editions maintained this secondary reading, but the 1908 RLDS edition removed the intrusive round from the RLDS text. One wonders if the round could have been there in the original text but was accidentally omitted during the dictation of the text. The word was very likely not in 𝓞 since it is not in either 𝓟 or the 1830 edition, both firsthand copies of 𝓞.

Usage elsewhere in the text argues that either reading is theoretically possible. In most instances (21 times), the word round does not occur before about in the phrase “to encircle round about”. Note, for instance, that round is lacking in 3 Nephi 17:24 for the second occurrence of this phrase: “and they were encircled about with fire”. There are, however, three instances in the original text of “to encircle round about”:

• Alma 17:33 encircle the flocks round about that they flee not
• Alma 48:8 and also building walls of stone to encircle them about round about their cities
• Alma 53:4 until they had encircled the city of Bountiful round about
  with a strong wall of timbers and earth

So in each case we follow the earliest reading; thus there is no round for either instance of “encircled about” here in 3 Nephi 17:24.